Sunday, September 19, 2010

and I'm going to show you how to make fabric lampshades from photographs.

I'm sure many of you have lots of digital photographs stored away that would look awesome backlit! I used to have a small business making lampshades from my photographs. They're all with a coastal theme, but the sky is the limit to what you can put on display.

In a nutshell, I made this lampshade by printing a digital photo onto four letter sized inkjet fabric sheets that I cut to size and adhered onto a self adhesive lampshade.

So you need a printer, preferably one that uses pigment inks. They are much more fade resistant than dye based ones. I have a small inexpensive Epson printer that works like a charm. As to the self adhesive lampshade and inkjet fabric, you can buy both at your local crafts store (I went to Michaels) or find them online.

Use the wrapper as your template. This round empire lampshade required four sheets. So I folded the wrapper in half, then folded each half again. I simply repeated the same image, but you can do compositions too. Print your pictures out on regular paper and play around!

After I peeled off the backing paper and cut the fabric pieces to size I simply adhered them to the self adhesive lampshade, going around the shade, letting the edges slightly overlap...

... then covering up the seams with soutache ribbon which I bought in a fabric store. I love it because it's narrow and glues really well. I wrapped the top and bottom wire of the lampshade too, using a single pre-folded bias tape that you can find at fabric stores or Walmart. I glued it to the front first, then on the inside. You don't have to do that since the shade wires come paper wrapped, but I prefer the fabric finish.

This is how the glued bias tape looks on the inside.

And lastly, I finished off the top and bottom with a nice soutache as well...

Thanks Maya! That is a very cool technique to know. I can see quite a few photos of mine on lampshades! I love beachy blogs and websites because it that is where I dream of being. Completely Coastal is definitely beachy and fun! I'm glad I can take a mini-vacation to Completely Coastalat almost any time and virtually for free!